Self published - any advice on how to market and increase sales?

[ElfOnTheTopShelf]

After years of debating, I self published one of the books I had written. I published under a pen name.

I've had a handful of sales, but my book has disappeared in that big long list of books for sale on Amazon!

Given I published under a pen name, I've not exactly been shouting it from the rooftops for people to buy.

Any ideas on how to increase sales, particularly if I can do this online etc to avoid saying to people I know professionally what I have written?

Any other self published authors out there?

Twitter? Facebook?

I am on Twitter under my pen name but not facebook.
I do tweet but I only have a handful of followers.

Not self published but I've read that Pinterest can be useful. Is it an ebook or paperback Elf?

It's available from Amazon and Smashwords as paperback and as e-book.

Have a look on the KDP forums - there's some good advice there. Have you got a professionally designed cover? What genre is the book? Tweaking your categories can help.

I don't think Twitter does much good, to be honest.

What's your book about?

Most of the people on the KDP forums are really struggling to get noticed themselves, I've found.

Did you ever send it to an agent?

I think Twitter can help, but you have to have a following on there so it's a bit chicken and egg.

TBH in my experience there's nothing that works as well as being promoted by Amazon themselves, but again, they won't do anything unless/until you're already selling and have good reviews.

I really, really, really don't mean to be offensive, although I probably am being rude. But is your book any good? What are the reviews like?

I self publish on Kindle. A lot of it is luck, having the right book at the right time.

One thing that's essential is to make your book description error free. That might seem obvious, but I saw one book that had a typo in the title! I've just checked, and it still hasn't been corrected.

A lot of people suggest Goodreads as a place to get known, but it's a huge site and it takes time to build up a presence there, time which could be better spent writing your next book. If you do go there, check the guidelines about promoting yourself.

The best way to raise your profile on Amazon is really to write more books. The more books you have, the more chance you have of getting noticed.